Hi Friends and Family, It was time to check out the other parts of Milano by going to the castles. This castle has a very long mediaeval history which one can see by the very reason of fortresses giving one the impression of knights and damsels in distress. It was frequented by many Japanese tourists and lots of American students who felt so in-the-moment that they just had to play a few strings for our entertainment. It was pretty good though and I threw in a few coins myself! Ladies and Gentlemen, it was hot! hot!! hot!!! It was so hot that we decided to go to ne of the biggest parks in the city and chill out with the locals whom you can see were having a fine time in all. In the evening, we ... read more

Good Morning Everyone! This is the last insert of our skiing week in 2009! I know, I know!! Anyway, I've put a few new people on my Email list for blog updates. If you would prefer NOT to be on my list please let me know ASAP so that I can take you off as I want to keep my friends LOL! For those of you interested, I'll be sending the Italian update, Poland and Manchester in the very nearest future....! So back to the Czech Republic and if you want to read the rest of the trip you can of course, help yourselves. Here we go... Its 06:00. Time to get up! I packed up the suitcase and the backpack and still found time to take a bath and wash my hair. All before 07:30. ... read more

Hi Friends and Family, Today, we're going to go for long walks and take photos. We decided to take the laptop with us so that we could later go to the hotel rather than going back to the pension. I had thought about walking to the train station and finding out just where it was as everybody was quite elusive! There was talk that it was 5 kms away. 5kms. Pah! After all, we had walked further than 5kms before. We even once walked 12 kms!! It was on the coastline in Poland. We had taken off our shoes and it was a bit windy but we had our lunch and “refreshments” with us so hardly felt the pull. I also had a clap-down buggy in one hand and “The Small Young Gentleman” in the other. ... read more

Today, we didn't have any appointments. We were finished with lessons and so we could take our time 'cos carrying two sets of skies and poles in ski boots can be very exhausting! We decided to take the 10:00 ski-bus and also use the time to take a few more photos of the scenery and also the other skiers. Roky is a place that now relies heavily on tourism and as such most of the houses were either pensions like our own, ( private homes rented out ), apartment hotels or chalets and most things were written in Czech and German with a sprinkling of English here and there. Its rare to hear English voices. They're all in France or Italy me thinks! It was a little misty today and it pretty early became difficult to ... read more

Roky is a haunt for Czechs and East Germans so most people spoke both languages. We spoke German too but for extra security. I wanted an English-speaker thus we were partnered with George, a young 20-something Czech. We were a very mini-group of three. Veronika ( a 6 year old Czech ), “The Small Young Gentleman” ( another 6 year old ) and me ( a complete adult ) and we were going to have private lessons on Horni Domky!!! Horni Domky spreads out over the southern slopes of Lysá hora at an elevation of 630 to 1,315 above-sea-level. By way of comparison with others, it is one of the best ski locations in the Czech Republic in terms of its position, exemplary ski slopes and facilities. It is mainly popular for its large diversity and ... read more